Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Some Thoughts about Extremism

I believe that you can learn a lot from extreme positions because they introduce ideas that may be unfamiliar and can challenge you to think outside the status quo. I in no way think that everything Thomas Ellis had to say in The Rantings of a Single Male is correct (and by the way, he is hardly at the extreme edge of thought about these issues), but I do think that much of it was reasonable enough to consider and examine. For someone who recognizes that there are issues between the genders and who wants to understand the other side's point of view, listening to things that sound "extreme" and really considering them and asking yourself some tough questions can help promote better understanding.

When I begin considering a point of view different than my own, my thoughts on the subject tend to sort of swing back and forth somewhat like a pendulum. I consider both extremes of a position and the less extreme positions in between and within the arc of the pendulum as well. I tend to keep the most extreme of these “swings of the pendulum” to myself because I know it is just part of the process for me. At some point the pendulum comes to rest in a position that hopefully has a better understanding of both sides, as it were.

You know what? It may be that in six months that I think very differently about all this stuff than I do right now because I will have learned more, and thought it through more and the pendulum will have swung back and forth a few more times. And, I am fine with that. I am fine with that because I believe that to really be open to learning you have to be open to having your mind changed.